Skip to main content
Dessert

Pudding, Cottage

A baked flour and lard pudding with sugar, milk, eggs, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Pudding, Cottage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  2. Rub in the lard until well combined.

Make the batter

  1. Mix in the eggs, milk, and sugar until smooth.

  2. Spread the mixture in pans to a thickness of 5 inches.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until it rises to about 1½ to 2 inches thick.

  2. Cut into 2¼ inch square pieces and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the pudding together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas as it heats, making the pudding rise into a light, open crumb.
Eggs
Set during baking to add structure and richness to the crumb.
Lard
Coats flour particles to tenderize the crumb and add richness.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Baking until risen. Baking powder needs enough heat to release gas and set the batter. Stopping too early can leave the pudding dense and under-risen, while the structure may collapse if it cools before setting fully.

Swap the vanilla

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, egg):

  1. Vanillathe original
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More cottage pudding recipes

Sauce 10Steamed 6Apple 5Strawberry 3 See all 326 →

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesWhite CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipes